San Antonio

We're back and had a GREAT time! Mitchell was a joy MOST of the time and Jacob and I enjoyed spending some quality time together...unlike most of our evenings spent catching up on DVR'd shows on the couch while simultaneously working away on our laptops. :)

Here are some pics and trip highlights!

The riverwalk was all decorated for Christmas! Apparently 2 men do ALL of the decorating by using a bucket truck. It takes them 3 months to get it decorated and another 3 months to undecorate, so essentially the riverwalk is atleast partially decorated over half of the year!

No trip to San Antonio is complete without a trip to the Alamo. We quickly learned that it was a little confusing for Mitchell to see "Elmo" one day at SeaWorld and the "Alamo" the next. I think he was a bit disappointed with this old building :)

We all enjoyed a guided tour boatride through the riverwalk. It is beautiful scenery and landscaping - lots of restaurants and people. Mitchell enjoyed the waterfalls and ducks! There are no railings on either side of the riverwalk, so we tried to keep Mitchell confined to his stroller as much as possible!

My Kansas City men on the San Antonio riverwalk boat. The weather was really nice on Saturday...70s and sunny. It was chillier (60s) and overcast the other couple of days, but still beat the 13 degree weather we came home to yesterday!

The riverboat ride wore our little boy out; he was sound asleep by the end of it. We were often in the middle of activities at Mitchell's bedtime or naptime, but he adapted so well...usually by either falling asleep in my arms or in his stroller. Twice (once on the bus ride home from SeaWorld and on the plane ride home) he alerted me that he was ready to crawl up in my arms and take a nap by asking me "Mommy, can you rock me like a baby?" What mother can refuse that sweet request?! :)

While at SeaWorld, Mitchell visited the real Santa AND Shamu Santa...I'll leave it up to you to determine which is which :)

We visited the dolphins at SeaWorld. Mitchell loved watching them and we all enjoyed being able to get so close to them and even pet them!

We bought some dolphin food (fish) to feed them. Mitchell really enjoyed watching me feed, but wasn't quite so sure about picking up the dead, slimy fishies. Can't say I blame him!

We all really enjoyed the Shamu show...actually so much that we watched it twice. Once during the day and also caught the last show of the night too. Given the overcast weather, there were NO CROWDS at SeaWorld! There are literally maybe 1,000 people in the entire park. We never waited a minute for anything - it was great! We did avoid the 3 or 4 water rides though (many of which Mitchell and I couldn't have gone on anyway). There were some brave families doing them though....and I could already picture Mitchell and his little brother dragging us on them at age 10 or so.

Daddy and Mitchell with Shamu in the background

Two whales jumping - aren't they amazing creatures!

Here is Mitchell on one of our many of bus rides. We chose to take public transportation rather than rent a car or take cabs. It was a little slower and a pain to figure out all of the routes at first, but a huge money saver.

A little transportation story......

We had connecting bus routes to get us to the basketball game (see below). It was rainy, chilly and getting dark that night. One bus dropped us off at the bus stop, and we were pleased to see that our connecting bus was already there! We quickly unloaded and ran towards our connecting bus only to inhale fumes as it took off as we were waving furiously in their rear view mirrors. :( A police man happened to be at the bus stop and quickly approached us and offered to take us where we needed to go. We rode safe and sound to the basketball stadium in the back of the police car. We told Mitchell that this was the only time we wanted to see him in the back of a police car! He called the man a "very nice police man", which the police man got a big kick out off :)

We took Mitchell to his first professional basketball game on Friday night. The Spurs took on the Charlotte bobcats (sorry, Celeste, the Spurs won). He REALLY enjoyed it! He was VERY entertained by the game, sitting so nicely in our laps to enjoy it!

We calculated that we spent a grand total of ~$500 on our 4 night, 5 night vacation. We used frequent flyer miles to book free flights and hotel points to get a free hotel stay, so the $200 was merely meals and entertainment. Although we were thrify, there really wasn't anything I wished we would've done that we might've avoided due to cost. We really had a great time!